Indonesia and Malaya without Islam?

The thing about Christianity is that it was often the driving force behind Islam in Indonesia. Had Europeans never invaded in the first place, Islam wouldn't have become such a powerful banner of resistance.

Without Islam, Indonesian culture would have developed very differently:

  • Javanese music and dance would remain more crude and expressive (think of lively Balinese performance compared to courtly Yogyakartan)
  • Textiles would be less refined (Islamic ban on images encouraged abstract, intricate designs).
  • Indonesians would be easier to enslave. Most slaves in colonial Batavia were Balinese, as Europeans avoided Muslim slaves in case they rebelled.
  • If Indonesia did become a Portuguese colony, Indonesians would be more mixed-race, as Catholic rule was more tolerant of interracial marriage than Dutch.

Actually, animism would not necessarily be affected. Java only became more orthodox when the Minang started to 'clean up' Muhammadiyah in the early 20th Century. Muhammadiyah's founder, the Javanese Ahmad Dahlan, didn't dare to overturn Javanese tradition.
 
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With a POD in the 600s speaking of Portugal colonising in the 1400s is a bit out there.

No but you could have an analogue to it in the Suevic kingdom instead. motivation still being the same... to circumvent the monopoly that the Egyptians and Levantine kingdoms would have on trade with the east. Either by sea through the Red Sea or over the Silk road.

Christianity is likely to be far more diverse though from an early period. Nestorianism and Monophysite Christianity being more prevalent in the east.

Resulting in earlier Schism or earlier accommodation with Rome one voice among many.

presumably the Mongols are not butterflied, but also not exactly the same either..... in the sense that the Steppe Nomads are bound to have the same devastating effects as our timeline in one form or another.
 
For one thing animism was huge in Pre-Islamic Indonesia and Malaysia and still is popular in those two countries plus the Philippines, so the dukuns and bomohs are probably going to become very influential.
 

MrHola

Banned
[*]If Indonesia did become a Portuguese colony, Indonesians would be more mixed-race, as Catholic rule was more tolerant of interracial marriage than Dutch.
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I thought the VOC encouraged or at the very least condoned a policy of race-mixing in her colonies.
 
I'm pretty sure the Dutch promoted race mixing as much as the Portuguese. In fact the Spanish,French,Dutch,Portuguese and even the British which were the major 5 colonizing powers encouraged race mixing except in places like America,Canada,Australia and New Zealand. And that was because there were plenty of white women to marry.
 
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